





TVYi r A 



jpfWh 



,A .'V.aAA 



v'^a'a'V*.*,*. 



v >rfv* 



tfs&faitofi. 






v^/v^i^Aisrffife/fsCi^' a?pS 5 *~ - c 



WMTSW' " * a/V^V^^*^ Aa * 















A. a 'v/Va a 



>' WaWW 



8A8ftX«fe"fiP 






,»^*m 






^fs^m^M^^ 



5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 

» * 

f [SMITHSONIiN DEPOSIT.] 

! UNITED STATES W 1MERICA f 






wmmmfr 









• *«* A A A/- r " 






'AAA' '"AAA, 



«*****««« .«Aa*./«;^ 



frmmmmmmrmzz! 






flR'A^A' 

■ - rs A ^ A , 



^:aaA>aaAaAIaA 



iABaUaUi 



ftftAft 






AAA AAA 



si^l^M 



£ a-A»wAA 



Sm&sSSc 



SM^W^^ 



^iAiA*A 



a^A& ' .. nn 



lii^^«»: 






^mmmm 



M&ififi 






ArtAf 



ih^fsm^^^ 



lOT^to 



W^^ 



»P 



o-Au.n-1 irvWftOA 



$R&Ms 



. -\ A ikAJ 



■ — y • '- ^ - n/ T r rVWW**ftftA ** AiAAA 



%^:.^"^w^ w ^ 



0- 



U/*&&A» 



>A^AA 



^W 






^#^^ 






AAaM*' n ^. 



W*D6flA^? 5V? 






■£*&£«££ 






; P^^P 






A.^^» 



m*A 



a . « AflAi' 



/*$*% 



<X. A*RftA 



Smm^s 



\sAdii^mM 



AN 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION, 



JUSTE 28, 1854. 



REV. ALVAH HOVEY, 

I*rofessor of" Church History. 



^BOSTON: 
J. M. II EWES, 8 1 CORN HILL 

1854. 






^AStil 



"GTON 



,o 



Jt° 



^*y4** 



ADDRESS 



Heretofore the officers of this Institution have been 
wont, when elected, to enter upoii the performance 
of their duties without the formality of a public address. 
In deviating from this course, sanctioned by usage, and 
altogether congenial to my feelings, I act in deference to 
the opinion of others, and from a conviction that the 
department of Christian study to which I am called, has 
not been fully and generally appreciated by us. Vener- 
ation, by no means too high or sincere, for the Scriptures 
and the Apostolic Church, has led us, it may be feared, 
to undervalue and in some measure neglect the record of 
what Christianity has wrought in the world during the 
lapse of these eighteen centuries. My discourse will 
therefore be expected to treat of this great record ; and 
the particular points which I propose to discuss, are the 
character and value of a good history of our holy religion, 
from the death of Paul to the present time. For thus 
may be indicated with least obtrusiveness the aim and 
the importance of instruction in the department entrusted 
to my care. 

And as to the character of such a history, it may be 
said in general, that it must give a trustworthy account 
of the progress and influence of Christianity among men. 



It must reproduce before the mind those scenes of trial, 
conflict and victory, by which, in defiance of all enemies, 
the truth has been preserved and "the household of 
faith ' ' continued from age to age ; by which the friends 
of Christ have been made pure and strong and joyful in 
the midst of restless foes and seductive temptations. It 
must recall and re enact, by the power of graphic lan- 
guage, the successive campaigns of this grand warfare 
and bring to light the Christian forces which have been 
most efficient when set against " principalities and pow- 
ers and spiritual wickedness in high places." It must 
extract from the dead languages of the faded manuscript, 
from the rusty coin and the huge mediaeval folio, words 
of energy and light, to animate the drooping and inspire 
the studious mind. It must break the crust which has 
hardened over those old fountains of knowledge, and let 
the waters of truth gush out in various and refreshing 
streams. It must also guide those liberated currents into 
appropriate channels, as the Egyptian gardener, with 
skilful hand, turns the obedient rivulets whithersoever he 
will to water his thirsty plants. In other words, it must 
draw from the original sources of knowledge respecting 
the Church, in each separate period of her history, suita- 
ble and interesting facts, and then grouping them to- 
gether with the eye of genius, form a series of truthful 
portraits, giving at once the permanent and the varying 
features of this Church. 

To be more specific, we believe that such a history 
must be extracted substantially from original documents. 
Though not in words, it must be in thought and spirit a 
transcript from the testimony of first witnesses and make 
the same impression, weariness excepted, upon a discern- 
ing mind, which would have been made by the perusal 



of their testimony in full. For history does not move in 
the domain of fiction, but in that of fact. It has to do 
with actual events, with the endurances and achieve- 
ments and opinions of a real, not a Utopian Common- 
wealth. It should be, no doubt, a sublime epic, reciting 
the deeds of Immanuel with His host, and doing far 
more than Milton's " great argument " to 

" Assert Eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

It is called to celebrate feats of moral heroism nobler 
than imagination ever feigned, and to recount events 
ordained of God for the accomplishment of His high 
designs. But it must cling to the truth. It must intro- 
duce no phantom upon the battle-fields of this holy war- 
fare, no shadowy form to mingle with earnest combatants 
in the army of Christ. It must be careful not to make 
the oracle of divine Providence either ambiguous or 
false, not to " extenuate, or set down aught in malice." 
Professing to let the voices of the Past be heard afresh, 
and pour their wisdom into the hearts of living men, it 
may err as fatally by the omission of that which is im- 
portant as by the fabrication of that which never occur- 
red. But no analysis or summary or report of testimony 
can be so reliable as the unabridged testimony itself. 
For a slight error, admitted through prejudice or over- 
sight by an investigator of the original evidence, is liable 
to increase in magnitude and assurance when repeated 
by another; — "mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo." 
The second reporter is not checked by those countervail- 
ing facts which tempered the language of the first, and 
rendered it impossible for him to deviate unconsciously 
so far from the truth. Accordingly whatever labor it 



may cost, a good history of the Church must be founded, 
like the verdict of an enlightened jury, upon the earliest 
and most direct evidence. Otherwise, moreover, it will 
be deficient in clearness, precision and vivacity of style. 
It may, indeed, display these excellencies, though rest- 
ing upon derived testimony, but only at the sacrifice of 
trustworthiness, a far more essential quality. For if 
merely such facts are admitted as are considered authen- 
tic, and reported alike by a large majority of those who 
have examined the primitive sources, the narrative will 
seem cold and bald and unattractive. Xo reader will be 
greatly interested. The scenes of other days will not 
rise up before his mind ; the moral atmosphere of the 
past will not surround or enter his spirit. He will trav- 
erse a barren waste, with but here and there a pile of 
whitened bones or a solitary mound to attract his atten- 
tion. If, on the other hand, that which is omitted, or 
called in question, or variously stated, by investigators 
of the original documents, be freely received, the work 
becomes thereby unworthy of confidence. However 
attractive, it forfeits the character of reliable history, and 
assumes that of mingled fiction and fact. 

Without pausing to justify this proposition by further 
argument, we add, in the second place, that a correct 
view of Christianity itself must underlie and pervade 
every good history of the Church. This normal idea will 
give unity, coherence, meaning and interest to details 
otherwise impertinent and wearisome. It will effectually 
prevent the intrusion of thoughts or facts alien to the 
subject, and like the force of attraction, will seize and 
hold with the strongest grasp that which possesses the 
greatest affinity to it. Wisely to choose his materials 
constitutes half the merit of an able historian. Even 



where all the facts spread out before his mind appear 
self-consistent and reliable, a selection must be made ; 
many must be examined, but few admitted. 

It was unnecessary for the Evangelists to put on record 
all the words of Christ in order to give us a true concep- 
tion of His spirit and work. The immense labor of pre- 
paring so minute and exhaustive an account would have 
been worse than lost. For if by the special providence 
of God the endless narrative had been saved from de- 
struction, few persons would have been able to obtain or 
peruse it, and still fewer would have made any consider- 
able use of more than a fraction of its contents. Hence 
the wisdom of God is manifest in the brevity of the Gos- 
pels, even without urging the presumption, that a fuller 
record would have merely re enforced, in other language 
addressed to other hearers, the same fundamental truths 
which we now have. 

But if the Evangelists were compelled to omit a large 
part of our Saviour's words, every one of which they 
esteemed an oracle from heaven, lest their narrations 
should be unduly protracted ; it is quite certain that a 
still larger proportion of existing materials must be re- 
jected by a historian of the Church. For the facts here 
craving attention are beyond comparison more numerous 
and of less intrinsic value. Every earnest historian, 
therefore, remitted to his own judgment or taste in the 
choice of all the minor events to be noticed, will be 
guided in this delicate part of his work mainly by the 
idea which he has formed of Christianity in its normal 
state. This idea will also organize his chosen materials, 
placing one historical personage in the fore-ground, and 
another in the back-ground, letting a beam of light fall 
upon this occurrence and a dim shadow upon that, sketch- 



8 

ing with patient love the features of an approved doc- 
trine, but giving in sharp outline the skeleton of a creed 
which he firmly believes to be unchristian and pernicious. 
Meanwhile the writer knows himself to be upright, and 
believes himself to be impartial. His sole purpose and 
effort are to represent the Church of Christ in all the 
stages of its growth and activity. Provided, then, he 
understands the nature of that church, and is able to 
distinguish it readily from every counterfeit, all is well. 
But an error at this point vitiates the whole perform- 
ance ; a misconception in regard to the real character- 
istics or constitutive elements of that kingdom, whose 
history he professes to relate, must greatly mar the ex- 
cellence of his work. 

A genuine Komanist, who believes the invisible church 
on earth is all contained within the visible, and who ex- 
cludes from the latter those of every name who do not 
submit to the Pope, and recognize his primacy in spirit- 
ual concerns, can hardly with a good conscience notice 
Protestants of any age, save in the language of anathema. 
A fatal prejudgment separates them, as by a wall of ice, 
from his sympathy ; denies them, with the sternness of 
an infallible decision, any place or part among the faith- 
ful, and requires him to pass them by in silence on the 
other side, or call attention with the finger of warning 
and accents of horror to their sad apostacy. 

But on the other hand, whoever believes that Chris- 
tianity is preeminently spiritual and internal, a divine 
life and power, transforming the individual soul, and 
dependent for its birth and growth upon no particular 
ritual or sacrament, or human priesthood ; whoever be- 
lieves, with Neander, that this new creation within may 
reveal itself with equal clearness through many and 



9 

diverse organizations adapted to the wants of each period 
and people, will produce a far other and more compre- 
hensive history of the Church. He will find true wisdom 
in the cavern and white-robed innocence in the dungeon, 
springs of water in the desert and flowers of piety on the 
Alpine summit. The stroke of his pen, like the touch of 
Ithuriel's spear, will change many a heretic into a mar- 
tyr, and many a caricature into a likeness ; will restore 
multitudes to their proper size and station in the religious 
world, and give to living faith and love the place which 
is often assumed by empty form and disguised hypoc- 
risy. 

Still, another historian may be convinced that Chris- 
tianity is first personal, and then organic — first a new 
life in the individual soul, and then a representation of 
that life in fellowship with others ; that it neither de- 
scends by inheritance, like an heir-loom, from genera- 
tion to generation, nor is conveyed as balm into the 
heart by holy offices and solemn rites, that it must rather- 
be traced directly to the spirit of God and the word 
of truth, and hence may exist notwithstanding many 
changes in the polity and ritual of the church as planted 
by the Apostles ; and yet with equal firmness may be- 
lieve, that our Saviour cared for the order of His house, 
and in due time, by the agency of inspired men, formed 
the primitive converts of each city or district into a 
model family ; that every departure from this original 
and fraternal organization of believers is dangerous to 
piety, and every attempt to improve it rash and sedi- 
tious — like an attempt to improve the word of God — 
tending either to secularize or to paganize the religion 
of Christ ; he may believe that the whole process of 
boasted development in the constitution of the Church, 



10 

since the first age, has been revolutionary and injurious, 
and all her sacramental and liturgical growth imaginary 
— like modern advances upon the personal excellence of 
Christ — or unnatural, obliterating more and more those 
characteristics of true religion which were adduced by 
Tertullian as manifestly divine, namely, the remarkable 
simplicity of its rites and the inexpressible grandeur of 
its effects. Now to the eye of such an author, that 
stream of living water, issuing " from the fountain open- 
ed in Judah," must appear to separate at length, like 
the river of Eden, and flow on in many divergent chan- 
nels ; — one of them sweeping heavily down through the 
valley, and receiving from either hand a multitude of 
turbid affluents, to swell its volume and vitiate its purity 
and destroy its healing virtue, — while others, winding 
their way along the hill-sides, amid rocks and trees, re- 
tain their sweetness, and sparkle with transparent life 
under every little patch of sky and every beam of his- 
toric light to which they are exposed. Such a historian 
would gladly lift the veil, whether of silence or slander, 
from all of every name, who in their day ''fought a good 
fight and kept the faith. " He would commemorate 
with peculiar satisfaction the deeds of those who braved 
death rather than swerve from the truth. And by a 
proper arrangement he would suffer the events of history 
to utter their emphatic protest against any deviation, 
however slight, from apostolic doctrine or practice. 
Oftentimes have these events failed to do this, simply 
because writers, in the course of their narrative, have 
given to them the color of their own false opinions, just 
as rocks are said to impart their color to the clinging 
polypus. 

The instances now alleged show how greatly his own 



11 

idea of Christianity must control a historian in the choice 
and use of his materials, and establish our proposition 
that a correct view of the Church as to its chief elements 
must underlie every good history of it. The warmth of 
honest zeal can be no substitute for this view, for zeal, 
however sincere, if not according to knowledge, may but 
clothe the form of error in robes of brighter hue, and 
twist the face of truth awry with a more steady and re- 
lentless hand ; it may call evil good, and good evil, with 
the strong emphasis of real conviction, and this convic- 
tion is a thing so fair and noble in itself, as to hide, 
perchance, the ugliness of deformity and make the worse 
appear the better reason. Nor can the cold equity arro- 
gated to themselves by such as profess to study and 
write, without the bias of any foregone conclusion as to 
the nature of Christianity, prove a better substitute for 
this view. To keep one's mind in perfect suspense 
touching so great a matter, is clearly impossible ; but 
were it not, — were this ignorant equipoise of judgment, 
resting on a sublime indifference to all which speaks of 
God and eternity, actually maintained by an ecclesiasti- 
cal historian, how then could he distinguish the genuine 
from the spurious ? How could he discover and honor 
the true ship of the Church amid fleets of piratical craft 
sailing under her colors ? 

But whence shall a right conception of the Church be 
obtained ? From the New Testament, and from that 
alone. If, then, as we humbly venture to believe, 
Christians of our denomination have turned to this sun 
for light, and have received substantially correct impres- 
sions respecting the faith and order of God's house, they 
possess at least one qualification for the profitable study 
and truthful delineation of its history. 



12 

And further, special prominence must be given in such 
a history to questions which still agitate the Church. It 
must be penetrated throughout by spiritual earnestness, 
and seek to elucidate the real problems of religion and 
life. For these are of permanent and transcendent 
interest They embrace every thing of supreme impor- 
tance to the soul. Having claimed the deepest thought 
of spiritual men from the first, by their weight or mys- 
tery, they articulate and conjoin the past with the present, 
and exhibit the most absorbing religious investigations of 
each successive period in the Church, as belonging to 
the identical web of Christian life or discipline which 
men of God are now weaving. They are the strong, 
benignant angels, with whom, by the wise providence of 
God, the faithful have ever been called anew to wrestle. 
Hence they must occupy a conspicuous place in every 
well-executed history of our religion. 

Whatever benefit may accrue to science, philosophy, 
and literature, from the prevalence of Christianity, its 
primary mission is to the moral nature of man. Its 
chief purpose and work are to deliver the soul from guilt, 
and crown it with eternal life. It may, indeed, have 
taken heavy chains from the intellect, and strengthened 
it for flight into higher realms of scientific investigation ; 
it may have irradiated large spaces of the soul, which 
were dark as midnight before, and brought to view 
sources of good or evil, after which mental explorers had 
groped in vain ; it may have established the only perfect 
law of beneficence, and suggested to philanthropy her 
best modes of action ; it may have invigorated the 
reason, raised the imagination and refined the taste of 
authors, thus enlarging the channels and purifying the 
waters of literature ; and all this may deserve brief 



I 






13 

notice and delineation in a history of Christianity ; an 
account of all this may be infused into the pores of the 
body of the work, adding to its value, without augment- 
ing its bulk ; — but the principal object for which the 
Word was made flesh, and suffered upon Calvary, and 
the principal office assigned to His Gospel and His king- 
dom, were unquestionably to fulfil the counsel of Infinite 
Love, " that whosoever believeth might not perish, but 
have everlasting life." 

And from the days of Paul until now, the true servants 
of God have recognized this peculiarity of the Gospel, 
have thought more of its saving than of its civilizing 
power, have rather been anxious to ascertain the moral 
attitude of man towards his Maker, and the appointed 
means of reconciliation, than to learn the effect which 
their religion has upon the temporal interests of society. 
They have acknowledged no doctrines of theology or 
polity to be cardinal, except those which go to answer 
that tremendous question : " What shall we do to be 
saved ? " And therefore must these doctrines, traceable 
in every age of the Church, be employed as the unbroken 
and continuous warp of her history. For the language 
of the wise man is ever true : " As in water face answer- 
eth to face, so the heart of man to man." Through all 
time the general make and strength of human spirits 
abide unchanged. In the search after truth much the 
same path is trodden by the mind of father and son. 
" The thing that hath been is the thing that shall be." 
Theologians of to-day are working the old veins of 
thought, and but casting into fresher and more approved 
forms gold, or silver, or brass, taken from mines opened 
long ago by the primitive explorer. 

Nor do we by this language depreciate the labors of 



14 

any. Even Christ himself chose for the most part to re- 
assert known principles of virtue. His moral precepts 
had been nearly all anticipated. Whether this pre- 
■ announcement of them, to a considerable extent, by 
heathen sages, was owing to somewhat religious in the 
structure of man's soul, causing it to light upon them in 
its lucid moments, or to a touch of inspiration, a breath 
from the Spirit, granted in mercy to thoughtful, earnest 
pagans, or, as we imagine, to some dim tradition and 
echo of early messages from God, may be doubtful ; but 
of their presence, here and there, in the masses of classi- 
cal literature, like solitary kernels of wheat in huge 
mountains of chaff, there can be no doubt. And the 
Messiah's chief work as an ethical teacher, was to unite 
the dissevered members of truth into a living body, — to 
present, in a compact, homogeneous system, those ex- 
pressions of the divine law of right and benevolence, 
which had before existed only in a fragmentary state, 
remote from each other, and almost lost under the rub- 
bish of human speculation. 

But if Christ was content to reassert old principles, 
because they were true and supremely important, it can- 
not be thought strange that Christians do the same ; it 
cannot be deemed surprising that nearly all the mighty 
thinkers and doers in the Church, nearly all believers 
characterized by downright honesty of purpose and ener- 
gy of action, have been irresistibly drawn to a few cen- 
tral, cardinal doctrines of the faith, and that a record of 
their struggles from age to age, while endeavoring to 
appropriate more fully, and use more efficiently these 
great powers, may constitute the best and vital part of a 
good history. 

As doctrines of this class, may be specified those which 



15 

pertain to the nature of God's law, the moral state of our 
race, the person and work of Christ, and the way to 
holiness in Him, — to the examination of which serious 
men have ever been attracted by their infinite weight. 
From the beginning, genuine Christians have wished to 
know and defend the truth in relation to these matters ; 
and so, too, have the foes of Christ striven with des- 
perate rivalry to pervert or bedim this truth. In every 
adequate record, therefore, of what Christianity has been 
and has done, these principles must continually appear. 
The earnestness and vigor with which men have often 
met around them in spiritual conflict, must animate the 
narrative, and make it well nigh tremble with emotion, 
as air trembles under the glowing sunbeam. 

Yet it is by no means enough thus to recognize topics 
of enduring interest, and give them large space in the 
account. They must also be treated with discrimination. 
Studious attention must be paid to the relative impor- 
tance of each for the several periods of history. For in 
every distinct era of her existence, has the Church been 
compelled to undertake some leading, urgent task. By 
a wise foresight and arrangement of God the vital prob- 
lems of Christian doctrine have come up in turn for 
investigation ; as the humanity of Christ in one age and 
His divinity in another, now the moral constitution of 
man, and then the nature of the atonement, here the* use 
of ordinances, and there the potency of faith ; and thus 
every period has had its own high lesson to teach, and 
its own deep impression to make. A failure to compre- 
hend these characteristic lessons, and to imprint them on 
the pages of his book, must be fatal to the success of any 
historian. 

Still more fatal, however, must be the error of intro- 



16 

during, to any great extent, that which belongs exclu- 
sively to the past, and has no representative or counter- 
part in the land of the living. Questions, which long 
ago lost their hold on the general mind, merit only a 
rapid survey. Gratifying a mere antiquarian curiosity 
in religion, they pertain rather to the history of mental 
science than to that of Christianity. We must look upon 
many speculations of the early Church as we look upon 
the fossil remains of extinct races in the animal kingdom. 
They lie before us cold and motionless, the relics of an 
age and condition of the spiritual world, which have 
passed away, never more to return. Several opinions, 
vigorously advocated by scholastic writers in the middle 
ages, now exist merely as rigid petrifactions, which no 
eloquence of speech can resuscitate. They were shoots 
from the philosophic willow grafted into the Christian 
vine ; and while the vine still remains, deeply rooted 
and perennial, those adventitious shoots have flourished 
into sterile branches, and been cut off forever. And so 
the historian can give them no conspicuous place in his 
work. He must leave them to rest undisturbed, or else 
must insert them in whatever crevices lie between his 
larger and better materials, just as the skilful stone-layer 
drops many a bit and fragment into the chinks of his 
rising wall. Nor will such treatment necessarily deprive 
the reader of some adequate knowledge of their peculiar- 
ities. For the language of Irenseus is still a proverb : 
Non oportet, universum ebibere mare eum, qui velit discere, 
quod aqua ejus salsa est. " One need not drink the 
whole ocean to learn that its waters are salt." 

We may close this part of our subject by remarking, 
that excellence of style must also characterize a good 
history of the Church. It must not merely contain the 



17 

truth, but display it. Events must neither be hidden by 
cumbrous phraseology, nor outshone by splendor of dic- 
tion. A glimpse of them will not attract or satisfy ; 
they must be made to stand forth full, and clear, and 
lifelike. Words in this case should serve, not to inter- 
cept one's vision of great transactions, but to clothe them 
instead as with a robe of " filmy gauze," and solicit a 
reader's eye to look upon the reality again. He may 
then be made to follow with intense sympathy the church 
militant, and in spirit " fight all her battles o'er again." 
If history be thus written, — if the facts are wisely cho- 
sen, grouped, and set in strong, terse, graphic language, 
— no species of human composition can be more interest- 
ing or instructive. Loquitur in stilo . . . litter a omni 
ore vocalior* " The author's pen will speak, and his 
written word be more effective than any eloquence of 
tongue." 

Provided my attempt to describe a good history of the 
Church has been at all successful, we are now prepared 
to consider the value of such a history. And the pre- 
sumption is altogether in its favor. For ' ' God is in 
history," and especially in the history of His people. 
His presence is their " cloud by day and pillar of fire by 
night." His favor is their life, and His benediction 
their pledge of victory. The story of their achievements 
is the record of what God has wrought. And next to 
the infallible Word, this record brings us nearest the 
Holy One, and points out most distinctly His way among 
men. 

It shows, in the first place, that God has done great 
things for the world by our holy religion, Whoever 

* Tertullian, 



13 

would appreciate the Church of Christ as a factor in the 
history of mankind, let him obtain at the outset correct 
views of the world when this factor was introduced. Let 
him go back in spirit to the age of Tiberius Caesar, and 
look into the houses and palaces, the schools and courts 
of justice, the temples and theatres, the camps and pri- 
sons of a people, who did "not like to retain God in 
their knowledge," and were therefore " given over to a 
reprobate mind." Let him hear the deep wail of Tacitus 
over the degeneracy of Rome, and listen to the awful 
confession of Seneca respecting the vices of his time ; 
let him study the satires of Juvenal, and ponder the 
words of Ovid, Suetonius and Dion, so illustrative of a 
sinking world. Let him examine in detail the writings 
of that period, till he feels in his deepest soul the utter 
impotence of philosophy and science and art to save men 
from the vilest passions and the lowest infamy. For we 
must know the original depth as well as the present 
height of an object, in order to measure the distance 
which it has passed over in the ascent. And hence, to 
see the ripe fruit of paganism ; — her sages drifting away 
on a sea of doubt ; her moralists feeling in blind despe- 
ration after the pillars of right ; her temples polluted by 
nameless and multiplied crimes ; her princes reckless, 
and her populace abject ; her simplicity and earnestness 
and manhood clean gone forever : — And then to look upon 
Israel, old and peevish ; her gold dim and her sceptre 
departed ; her sanctuary a den of thieves, and her teach- 
ers blind ; her law buried under the rubbish of tradition, 
and her charity more contracted than her boundaries, — 
to see that " darkness covered the earth and gross dark- 
ness the people," and to hear ever and anon voices of 
despair publishing the woe : this, alas ! must be the in- 



19 

troduction to his study. The earth was then a broad 
plain, on which rested a cold, dark mist. Scarce a hill- 
top pierced this veil of fog and gloom to the sunlight 
above. Scarce a solitary pilgrim could be discovered 
here and there climbing upward to catch a gleam of the 
cheerful day. 

But now, in man's extremest need, the Word was 
made flesh : He " who was the brightness of the Father's 
glory and the express image of His person," took the 
form of a servant, and walked lowly and gently among 
men. His feet were upon earth, but his head was above 
the mist and above the cloud, radiant with the glory of 
heaven. All spiritual wisdom was concentrated in Him, 
and superstition fled before His luminous teaching. He 
knew all the tones and semitones of the scale of truth, 
and all the divine harmonies ever to be evolved from 
them. He could touch at once every string of the golden 
harp of wisdom, and elicit gushing strains of melody and 
life. Yet mindful of human weakness, He but linked 
together in a few simple airs of " majestic sweetness " 
the fundamental chords of holy science, and reserved the 
more intricate and difficult combinations for another 
world. 

A little company of disciples were drawn to His feet, 
listened to His sacred voice, opened their eyes to His 
divine effulgence, and sprang upward from darkness to 
day. And at length, after the Master had ascended on 
high, and the Holy Spirit had come clown to inspire their 
minds with supernatural insight and prevailing faith, 
they were qualified to plant and train the Church of 
Christ, and were enabled to put on record for later gen- 
erations all necessary truth. At their departure inspira- 
tion ceased. The well of salvation was large, deep, full, 



20 



and men were henceforth invited to draw and be re- 
freshed. The facts or elements of Christian truth were 
given for all time. 

But only an infinite mind could fully comprehend these 
elements. They were, however, to be used by men, 
faithful indeed, but not profound, by men nurtured in 
the midst of paganism, and breathing its tainted atmos- 
phere, accustomed to moral twilight, and half bound by 
false philosophies. And so the Word of God was im- 
perfectly understood, — the line of investigation floating 
awhile on the surface of truth. Many errors crept into 
the Church through the gate of bad interpretation. A 
nimble, untamed fancy, which exulted in allegory, par- 
able and paradox, was suffered to explain the Bible ac- 
cording to its own license in the use of speech. Whole 
cosmogonies from the East were bound, like the burden 
of Bunyan's pilgrim, to a few passages of Scripture, and 
thus brought within the fold. Regeneration was at 
length taken to be a mere opus operatum, a change effect- 
ed by the virtue of baptismal waters. The clergy in 
certain places became powerful, and began to say, each 
to his brother, " Stand by thyself, for I am holier than 
thou." They grew more tenacious of authority and less 
watchful for souls. Meanwhile kings undertook to pat- 
ronize the faith which they once strove to quench in 
blood. They waxed zealous for their own several ortho- 
doxy. They set up one and cast down another in the 
visible Church. They took part in general councils, and 
facilitated the settlement of theological questions by 
promptly adding to the gravity of argument the weight 
of a drawn sword. Pagan temples, and shrines, and 
festivals, and rites, were now consecrated afresh, and 



21 



solemnly appropriated for holy use by a secularized 
Christianity. Rome subdued her conquerers ! 

But let us not be too fast. There were seven lamps 
on the golden candlestick, and we may have watched but 
one of them. The eclipse of nominal Christianity may 
yet be merely annular. There may be a rim of light 
still clear and warm, upon the outer circle of the orb, a 
" silver margin to the cloud" which has grown so 
black. And it is even so. Christ did not suffer his 
word to fail. There were many then living and toiling, 
of whom the world was not worthy. There were com- 
munities little observed by the great and wise, who 
nevertheless kept the faith. There were unpretending 
believers, cast out as evil and laden with curses by the 
dominant hierarchy, who never ceased to make cave, glen 
and mountain height vocal with praise to God. And 
these were the true succession. By meekness, endur- 
ance and charity, by the "work of faith and labor of 
love and patience of hope," they verified their priestly 
lineage and calling. With an open Bible and a new 
heart, they refused to amalgamate with paganism, even 
when their refusal entailed the loss of all things, the giv- 
ing of their bodies to be burned and of their memory to 
reproach. 

But these were not all. Some in the papal church 
turned with fainting spirit to the Word of God, and 
drank long and deep of its crystal waters. Refreshed 
and invigorated, they began to labor also for others. 
Whole sections of the Church wavered in attachment to 
the see of Rome, and were hardly retained in her orbit 
by sword and fagot. Men of strong intellect, liberal 
culture and genuine faith, like Augustine and Pascal, 
took up the massive links of truth given by inspiration, 



22 

and welded them into mighty chains, binding the soul to 
free grace for salvation, and breaking down by their 
ponderous weight the arrogance of human pride and self- 
sufficiency. As the work went on, better principles of 
interpretation were adopted, reformation came, preaching 
was resumed, Bibles were multiplied, and now truth is 
entering into actual and earnest conflict with systems of 
error all over the world. And this truth is the great 
iconoclastic hammer of God Almighty, falling evermore, 
stroke after stroke, with increasing frequency and force, 
upon the stony head of idolatry ; a head, terribly jarred 
and splintered already, which that hammer shall at length 
beat in pieces and crush to dust and destroy utterly, that 
Christ may " reign from sea to sea, and from the river 
to the ends of the earth." 

And by comparing the world of to-day with the world 
at Christ's advent, it will appear that God has done 
marvellous things for it by our holy religion. Homes 
and schools, prisons and asylums, churches and benevo- 
lent associations, all bear witness to a vast increase of 
knowledge and a partial renovation of society. A his- 
torical survey of the true Church will show that her 
members have been all along a brotherhood of spiritual 
noblemen, the best blood of our race, rejoicing in the 
hope of eternal life, and contending manfully for the 
faith once delivered to the saints. 

And if, after such a survey, religion should still seem 
to have made slow advances, and done very little for so 
long a period, let us remember that " one day is with 
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
one day." He is often pleased to elaborate, by means 
of varied instruments and through slowly moving centu- 
ries, those works which are in a signal manner to show 



23 

forth His power and benevolence. And He will never 
be straitened for time to carry fitly onward to its final 
issue the plan of mercy devised before the foundation of 
the world. Although we live in the " last clays," we 
have nevertheless seen "only the beginning of the end." 
Christianity has gathered in merely the first sheaf of her 
rich and glorious harvest. Enough, however, has been 
done to prove her divine parentage, and the presence of 
God in her tents. Enough has been done to make her 
history, fairly written, the most instructive, admonitory 
and encouraging volume, apart from the Bible, which 
men can be invited to read. 

Such a history possesses great value, in the second 
place, because it reveals the actual law of progress in 
Christianity. It is something to know that the cause of 
God has not been stationary since the close of the Apos- 
tolic era, that there has been a constant ebb or flow of 
tide in the spiritual world, a movement perpetual, and on 
the whole, progressive. It is something for a thoughtful 
Christian to find such words as " the righteous also shall 
hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be 
stronger and stronger," applicable, not only to the indi- 
vidual believer, but to the entire body of Christ as well, 
and to rejoice in the simple fact of growth on the part of 
God's people in knowledge and virtue. But this is not 
enough. We feel it to be equally desirable to under- 
stand the law of spiritual action under which this grati- 
fying change has been effected ; we deem it equally 
important to discover the method adopted and the agen- 
cies employed by our Saviour for the advancement of His 
cause. For such knowledge will qualify us to enter into 
His plans, and cooperate in their fulfilment. 

Now, after the Bible, Church History is called to the 



24 

office of furnishing this knowledge. It shows how inter- 
pretation, biblical theology, and Christian ethics, have 
come to be understood far better than in the second cen- 
tury, how devout men of each successive generation have 
entered into the labors of their predecessors, resuming 
and carrying forward the investigation of God's unchang- 
ing Word from the point where it had been left before, 
and how every step in advance, taken by the faithful, is 
nevertheless a step in return to the primitive, divinely 
authorized belief and constitution of the Church, — the 
stream never flowing higher than its fountain head. 

For the Apostles, under the influence of a divine power, 
did not for the most part write or speak mechanically, 
but intelligently, appreciating better than we are yet 
able to do the import of their own language, and its 
bearing in each case upon other doctrines of their Master ; 
and therefore it may be presumed, that no essential prin- 
ciples of Christian truth or ecclesiastical polity were neg- 
lected by them in teaching the Churches. The opinion, 
that various types or schools of belief, — as the Petrine, 
Pauline, Johannean, — were established by the Apostles 
in the regions where they severally labored, and that in 
the best of these schools, or in some later sample of the 
Church, regarded as a mixture of them all, we are to 
look for the ultimate and maturest form of Christianity, 
is neither authorized by the New Testament, nor sup- 
ported by analogy, nor deducible by fair interpretation 
from the events of history. It is unreasonable to pre- 
sume that parties and strifes were sown in the heart of 
primitive Christianity by inspired teachers. God does 
not thus introduce division and weakness into His own 
household. It is also an error to suppose the first Chris- 
tians incompetent to receive the leading doctrines of our 



25 

faith, or unwilling to discharge the practical duties of it. 
They were bold, earnest, self-denying, and ready to fol- 
low Christ through evil as well as good report. In every 
thing which pertains to the constitution and government 
and ordinances of the Church, they were not a whit be- 
hind the very chiefest of their successors. 

But in regard to the deeper truths of divine revela- 
tion and their manifold bearings upon each other and 
the spiritual life of mankind, the early Christians were 
but children. What the Apostles knew by virtue of a 
special gift, must be evolved from their writings by ages 
of study. One after another, men of powerful intellect 
and great experience must be raised up to search the 
Scriptures, bring to light, arrange, and apply their pro- 
founder truths, and then pour them by the agency of 
voice or pen into the bosom of Christian society,— there 
to spread and work, silently perhaps, but swiftly, from 
member to member, till the whole body feels their quick- 
ening energy, and the Church springs forward in her 
course of light. By a repetition of this process, alike 
honorable to the Word of God and the dignity of regen- 
erated, individual man, as well as encouraging to per- 
sonal effort and a sense of responsibility on the part of 
every disciple to his Master, has Christianity made all 
her progress in the world ; each succeeding laborer hav- 
ing the advantage of a higher starting-point than his 
predecessors, and of all the knowledge deposited by them 
in the common mind of Christendom, if not in books ; 
while yet nothing is accomplished without the working 
of intelligent, sanctifying faith upon the heart, and the 
strenuous exertions of single-handed zeal for the truth. 
In the army of believers Christ expects " every man to 
do his duty." And whenever there has appeared in this 



26 

army a true champion, wholly devoted to his King and 
cause, others have caught the spirit of Christian heroism, 
the standard of truth has been carried forward, and the 
Word has been fulfilled, that " one should chase a thou- 
sand, and two put ten thousand to flight." 

Were there ample time for the purpose, it would be 
suitable for me, in the next place, to indicate the polem- 
ical value of such a history. It would be well to portray 
the severe struggles which now engage or presently await 
the friends of Christ. It would be proper to notice, for 
example, the startling theories of inspiration and Church 
development lately inaugurated, the fierce audacity of 
disbelief, screaming out its challenge and defiance, the 
servile prostration of credulity kissing the great toe of a 
spiritual autocrat and clamoring for the restoration of ex- 
pelled darkness, the weasel approaches of lithe Jesuitism 
and the shameless polygamy of Latter Day Saints. And 
then it would be desirable to show how the Providence 
of Grod, as explained by the story of His people, would 
teach us to encounter these foes of good, and how jet 
after jet of historic light, cast into the very centre of this 
dense, black cloud of impending evils, must reveal its 
nature and fortify us against its violence. For existing 
errors have their roots in the past. To understand their 
nature, we must trace their growth by the light of his- 
tory. They are old in spirit and substance, even if new 
in name and form. Atheistic and pantheistic philoso- 
phies are veteran enemies to the doctrine of Christ, and 
in the course of their long hostility have put on number- 
less disguises for the purpose of undermining the faith of 
some. Formalism, skepticism and mysticism, are types 
of error represented in every age, from the time of our 
Saviour until the present hour. False theories of in- 



27 

spiration, subverting the Word of God, were broached 
before the days of Origen, and have vexed the faith of 
Christians until now. Scarcely had the second century 
closed, when the Montanists took their rise, professing to 
enjoy new revelations and to introduce the final reign of 
the Spirit. The heirs of their creed have reappeared 
continually, and still flourish among us. And the same 
strain of remark would apply to a multitude of current 
errors. Indeed, whatever hostile views the Church is 
now called to meet and overcome, are the result of con- 
flicts reaching back to the first ages of Christianity, and 
cannot be comprehended without knowing the history of 
our holy religion. For the citadel of truth has been 
often assailed, and by all imaginable foes. Her walls 
have been tried at every point and by every species of 
weapon ; by catapult and battering-ram, by haughty 
summons and treacherous ambuscade, by patient siege 
and desperate assault, by armies of Doubters and troops 
of Bloodymen ; while the tactics of unbelief have been 
varied till invention itself is weary, and every fresh strat- 
agem proves but the repetition of an ancient failure. 
Hence a faithful history of our religion, delineating her 
conflicts and her victories, will disclose the elements, 
whether of weakness or of strength, in those opinions 
which now check her prosperity, and will teach us how 
to withstand, confute and destroy them. For in almost 
every system of belief there are certain doctrines which 
may be brought into vital connection with human nature 
as it is, certain points which have a sort of magnetic 
sympathy with corresponding forces in the soul, and 
which constitute the real power of their respective sys- 
tems. By directing attention to the rise and growth of 
religious opinions, Church History lays open to inspec- 



28 

tion these central and attractive points, and thus indi- 
cates both where and how theories, which are false and 
pernicious, must be assailed, in order to effect their final 
overthrow. 

It would also be suitable for rne further to show the 
value of such a history, as tending to foster a catholic, 
charitable spirit. Men of shining virtue have appeared 
in almost every division of nominal Christianity. How- 
ever erroneous and hurtful a creed may be in the main, 
it will generally embrace a few principles of truth, and 
one or more of these principles may preoccupy the hearts 
of a small number of individuals, working there nearly 
alone, and transforming the moral nature. Hence Chris- 
tian heroes have been associated with the worst perver- 
sions of our faith, and we are called to honor integrity of 
conscience where we shudder at errors of belief. Espe- 
cially frequent are instances of this kind at the formation 
of a new sect. The founder himself is oftentimes a man 
of earnest character and purpose, but of narrow mind 
and erratic judgment. Dissatisfied with existing opin- 
ions as wrong or inert, and eager to accomplish suddenly 
the reformation of mankind, he gives himself up to some 
novel idea, without apprehending its deeper tendencies 
or foreseeing its necessary results, when made the nucleus 
of a logical system, developed by cooler heads and re- 
ceived by worse hearts than his own. Moreover, an 
infant society, struggling for existence in the face of 
opposition, and yet boldly announcing the grandest and 
most beneficent changes to be effected by its future ex- 
pansion, offers many attractions to enthusiastic, noble 
spirits. It appeals to every romantic sentiment and feel- 
ing of which they are capable or proud. It presents to 
them an open field for the exercise of chivalric gener- 



29 

osity in defence of the weak, and makes them blind to 
imperfections which they would at once perceive in a 
different cause. History, therefore, in -view of these 
and similar facts, teaches us to beware of the first and 
slightest deviation from truth, as infinitely perilous, and 
yet encourages us to look with charity upon some who 
wade unconsciously into the shoreless sea of untruth, till 
its waves break over their heads. 

It would then be proper for me to insist upon the value 
of our supposed history, as contributing to breadth of 
mind and soundness of judgment upon religious questions 
in those who should peruse it. It would be well to show 
that this work would give to its readers a large prospect 
and view, including the whole of Christendom from the 
Apostolic age to the present time ; that it would place 
them on the mountain top for observation, and enable 
them to behold at a glance the main streams of nominal 
Christianity throughout their entire course, to perceive 
their principal windings, and the direction in which on 
the whole, they have moved, and to ascertain with cer- 
tainty the precise points to which they are severally 
tending. Such a survey is the best safeguard against 
those rash conclusions which men are liable to make from 
current events, mistaking, not unfrequently, the feverish 
and fitful energy of a dying cause for the vigorous action 
of health. 

And, lastly, it would be interesting to take note of the 
spiritual bearing and worth of this history. It would be 
in place to exhibit the influence of recorded example, 
the power which good men are known to wield after 
death, by the transmitted story of their faithfulness. 
For a true history of the Church will abound in the facts 
of Christian experience. It will often reveal the inward 



30 

discipline which leads on to holiness. It will lay open 
the heart of more than one disciple to our inspection, and 
depict the fiery seas of trial through which men like 
Augustine, Luther and Bunyan passed to the haven of 
rest. It will testify of the new birth, of overcoming 
faith, and of holy enterprise, and will beckon us to follow 
the radiant pathway of those, in every generation, who 
' c washed their robes and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb." 

But my discourse must be arrested midway, to relieve 
your patience. This rapid glance at long trains of cumu- 
lative argument must suffice. And may He in whom 
there is light and no darkness at all, dwell in our hearts, 
and lead us to a better knowledge of Himself by the 
word of revelation and by the history of His people. 






VJ ^£* - - • - - - v <^ ^ ; v * t * Jos $i«wtyw9#* w \jJMvwwi 



wm/w, 



5 w w w --w^VQl 



,^^:> 






mmMmmmMmM 












M. 



mwti 



pjff^i 






'tiBEtti 






^^WmmmmM 



*VJ*\ i ^Uv' 




'WUWWJW: 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 

mm 






•"iSlKiSii 



■ffmniiTL 



?i#3«PPv^&^ 









$mw' imm 



iu - ; yUi iwwua 






w^p% 



¥JHyK^3i"l^fc-J^i-^i;-J 






/"%¥ 






^mm^i A 






MmmMm 



¥WWW 



yyttfiW 



'm0WQ 



mmmm 



^^^^^ 



WWW . I . 



^gw-^\- .., - • ■ 



l«p^ 



MUi « 






Mnivi 



vvvw^yy; 



^^#1^ 



§r~ *v«fp 



yagM&AA i\ Mi 



M»* 



ukMUM^fZl^ 



